Police: Masked man breaks into pharmacy with ax, steals drugs

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A masked man broke into a pharmacy in St. Nicholas and stole drugs, according to a Jacksonville Sheriff's Office report.

It happened early Monday morning at Panama Pharmacy on Atlantic Boulevard.

The police report shows a man wearing yellow gloves, a tan face mask and a dark jacket broke into the pharmacy by using what appeared to be an ax. According to the report, the intruder initially broke through a front glass window and then used the ax to tear through the sheetrock of a wall to get into the pharmacy.

"That's wild. I've never heard anything like that before. I've heard of people kicking down a door or breaking a window. But, I mean, to sledgehammer open a wall, that’s crazy," said pharmacy owner Kevin Duane, who alerted police to the burglary.

Duane told News4Jax the store had surveillance video from several angles of the heist unfolded.

"He crawled his way down, and he had an ax and a sledgehammer, and he axed the wall and broke down the wall and entered the pharmacy from the wall," Duane said. "Then just kind of free-for-all took anything and everything he could."

Surveillance image provided by Panama Pharmacy

Duane said the intruder bashed in more than one wall, a mirror and shelves and took a lot of medicines that were there.

"He wrecked the place. I mean, it was bad," Duane said. "We walked in and it looked like a bomb went off. It was bad."

Police said the burglar was inside the pharmacy for about nine minutes before leaving with two large plastic bags filled with stolen items, which included drugs, diabetic products and prescription bottles for current patients.

Duane said the pharmacy had to close for a day and a half, but reopened Tuesday afternoon.